"Help me ... help you!"

Hook’em and Book’em Grows

Have you ever launched into something without knowing the consequences? Something akin to grudgingly offering to coach a kid’s baseball team knowing the last time you picked up a bat Babe Ruth was still cracking home runs? Or starting a blog without knowing where it might lead?

Almost six months ago, I launched Hook’em and Book’em (HB) with an idea that mystery readers and writers might like to connect with law enforcement. Maybe readers might like to learn from cops—those who have fought the good fight—and use this information to write mystery fiction with more authenticity. Added to this, I thought mystery readers and writers might like to meet other published authors and learn about their latest novel.

Time appears to have validated this assumption. Readers from thirty countries have wandered over to HB in the last six months.These visitors have arrived from every continent but Antarctica—and I’m still hoping for a reader from that icy tip of the world. Although most of our visitors are from North America, they’ve included islanders off the coast of Thailand, as well as visitors from Tobago, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania, and other places I’d love to visit.

Here at HB, I continue to learn through trial and error. Thanks for overlooking these mistakes


One thing I’d like to encourage is more dialogue with and between readers. Although we continue to have a number of visitors, they often come and go without leaving a trace. Just past through cyberspace without telling us know what they think or what they might find interesting.

Here comes another assumption. I feel  Hook’em and Book needs to broaden its content to capture the revolution going on in the publishing industry—like ebooks, print on demand publishers, and major publishers starting their own self-publishing ventures. 


Beginning this week, there will three posts a week on HB. Generally, these articles will appear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, unless my reservoir of ideas come us empty, my computer crashes, or a major publisher wants one of my novels right now. I want encourage readers to jump in with comments, suggestions and requests. Is there a mystery author you’d like me to hunt down and invite to our group? Any topic in law enforcement you’d like to learn more about? How about the publishing industry? Writers and aspiring novelists: how about the pains and joys of writing? What are some things you are struggling with? What rocks your boat? What really ticks you off?

Here at HB, I’d like to open this up to more dialogue and interaction. More of an open forum on any number of topics that might interest readers. Our core law enforcement and author interviews will still continue. I plan on taking a look at the border issues currently in the news, as well as other cops topics. 




Two of my favorite authors will join us in the coming month: 


Bestselling author Davis Bunn will hook up with us—all the way from England, unless he happens to be surfing in Florida—to talk about his latest novel, The Black Madonna, scheduled for release in September. 


Author Dean Koontz, New York Times bestseller, will join us in a few months about his novel, What The Night Knows, targeted for release in December. His prose and his plots are sure to make you shiver.

I hope to offer our readers much more, but it all depends upon you. Let me know what interested you. What you’d like me to pursue.

The key is flexibility in our topics. HB will strive to offer other perspectives about what is happening in the publishing industry. Quick briefs on mystery novels just hitting the stands. We’ll be exploring what’s happening in the publishing digital revolution, cultural trends in fiction, and any other subject that is hot at the time. Please leave your comments in the link to this article, or email me directly at MarkYoung@MarkYoungBooks.com.

Remember that Jerry McGuire movie scene where actor Tom Cruise plays a sports agent. In one scene, the agent, Jerry McGuire struggles to break through to his one and only client about the need to make their best possible football deal. Peering into his client’s eyes, McGuire pleads: “Help me … help you. Help me, help you.”

Here at HB, I saying the same thing … although don’t expect any money.

Thanks to all those readers who’ve stopped by over the last six months. Keep on enjoying this journey.